Research On Virtual Instrument System Architecture

Experiments play significant roles in the study of natural sciences. Hardwareexperiments are difficult to be operated, maintained and managed in traditional naturalresearches, especially when these researches are complex. The development of newexperimental apparatus and the innovative experimental means have become the main trendof the development of laboratory equipment. Compared with the traditional equipment, virtualinstruments use high-performance hardware. These hardware combined with flexible andefficient software programs are construct to collect and analysis varieties of data. What’s more,automation applications and intelligent program are also used in this field. With theseadvantages mentioned above, virtual instrumentation hardware and software engineers areable to take advantage of the graphical development software to construct a complexequipment to meet the fickle needs efficiently. The emergence of virtual instrumentssignificantly increases the work efficiency while reduces the development risk.Virtual instrument system architecture is the foundation and core of the virtualinstrument development. A well-designed and reliable system architecture can ensure the highefficiency and quality of a virtual equipment. The virtual instrument system architecture is themost important part during the design of a virtual instrument.Based on the research of previous studies, this paper summarized three systemarchitecture guidelines and proposed new virtual instrument system architecture. We alsoadopted the proposed system architecture in the development of the scanning electrochemicalmicroscope equipment(SECM). After scientific testing, analysis and evaluation, our proposedvirtual instrument system architecture proved to be viable and valuable.